'Milk'

'I'd rather be black than gay because when you're black you don't have to tell your mother.'

It took me a while to finally get to watch this one. As with any film that is 'Gay Themed', the mainstream audience will undoubtedly talk about the scenes where Sean Penn sleeps with James Franco instead of actually focusing on the theme and emotion of the story. Same thing happened with Brokeback Mountain-a far less superior film to Milk. Both films are conventional and both films deal with what it is to be queer in America. I always go back to the saying 'Closets are for clothes' in which the dealing of homosexuality is given an abrupt and unequivocal challenge.

Penn Plays Gay Civil Rights leader and -first openly gay politician- Harvey Milk. He won an Oscar for it and there's not enough praise to let you know it's the sweetest, most endearing performance of his career. I never thought I'd see Sean Penn kiss so many men but there he is, Gay as a kite and you believe in his sincerity, his honesty and his humble gestures. A gay friend of mine admitted that he had a few 'Oprah like' moments watching the film because 'that was our history on screen, the struggle and the continuation of it'. That is precisely why a movie like Milk is important, People can deny hatred all they want but that does not mean it ceases to exist and there can only be continuation to the ignorance- it's everywhere. Just look at the marriage bans all across the states and the countless Religious zealots that still believe in it being a disease. I guess you can call this an important film.